Armenian authorities not concerned by oligarch Karapetyan’s political plans, says official

Deputy Chief of Staff to the Armenian Prime Minister, Taron Chakhoyan, has stated that the authorities see no reason for concern regarding the initiative of the detained oligarch Samvel Karapetyan to establish a new political force, stressing that public support will be revealed in the 2026 elections.

Chakhoyan commented on Karapetyan’s political plans during a conversation with journalists, Caliber.Az informs, citing Armenian media.

According to him, the authorities are not at all worried about it.

“If anything troubles us, it is the fact that a Russian citizen is attempting to interfere in Armenia’s internal political life,” Chakhoyan noted.

In response to a question about whether the government fears the potential influence of this new political project, he recalled that many new parties have emerged in the country since 2018, and their actual impact has turned out to be limited.

“There’s less than a year left until the 2026 elections, and you’ll all see the level of support enjoyed by the current authorities compared to these emerging forces,” he added.

Earlier today, July 14, Karapetyan announced plans to establish “a fundamentally new political team” amid ongoing political tensions in Armenia. He intends to pursue his path at the helm of his own team, while not ruling out cooperation with like-minded political forces. These figures reject the societal division into “black” and “white” groups — a division the authorities have imposed on the people.

The businessman is currently being held in pre-trial detention on charges of inciting the overthrow of the government.

For the record, Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian-Armenian billionaire, was arrested in Yerevan on June 18, on charges of publicly calling for the overthrow of the Armenian government, violating Part 2 of Article 422 of Armenia’s Criminal Code. The charges stem from statements Karapetyan made in support of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC), which has conflicted with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s administration. Specifically, Karapetyan denounced Pashinyan’s attacks on the AAC and its leader, Catholicos Garegin II, vowing to “intervene in our own way” if political leaders failed to address the issue.

By Khagan Isayev